[avyaktam]

From Q&A 1953. (The Mother talks to children in the playground)

Now, without going to that extreme, there are in the physical
atmosphere, the earth-atmosphere, numerous small entities
which you do not see, for your sight is too limited, but which
move about in your atmosphere. Some of them are quite nice,
others very wicked. Generally these little entities are produced
by the disintegration of vital beings—they pullulate—and these
form quite an unpleasant mass. There are some which do very
fine things. I believe I narrated to you the story of the little beings
who tugged at my sari to tell me that the milk was about to boil
and that I had to go and see that it did not boil over. But all of
them are not so good. Some of them like to play ugly little tricks,
wicked little pranks. And so most often it is they who are behind
an accident. They like little accidents, they like the whole whirl
of forces that gather round an accident: a mass of people, you
know, it is very amusing! And then that gives them their food,
because, in reality, they feed upon human vitality thrown out of
the body by emotions and excitements. So they say: just a small
accident, it is quite nice, many accidents!...
And then if there is a group of such small entities, they may
clash with one another, because among themselves they do not
have a very peaceful life: clashing with one another, fighting,
destroying, demolishing each other. And that is the origin of
microbes. They are forces of disintegration. But they continue
to be alive even in their divided forms and this is the origin
of germs and microbes. Therefore most microbes have behind
them a bad will and that is what makes them so dangerous.
And unless one knows the quality and kind of bad will and is
capable of acting upon it, there is a ninety-nine per cent chance
of not finding the true and complete remedy. The microbe is a
very material expression of something living in a subtle physical
world and that is why these very microbes (as I have said there)2
that are always around you, within you, for years together do
not make you ill and then suddenly they make you fall ill.
There is another reason. The origin of the microbes and
their support lie in a disharmony, in the being’s receptivity to
the adverse force. I will tell you a story. I do not know whether
I have already told it to you, but I am going to tell you now for
it will give you an illustration.

I was in Japan. It was at the beginning of January 1919.
Anyway, it was the time when a terrible flu raged there in the
whole of Japan, which killed hundreds of thousands of people.
It was one of those epidemics the like of which is rarely seen.
In Tokyo, every day there were hundreds and hundreds of new
cases. The disease appeared to take this turn: it lasted three
days and on the third day the patient died. And people died in
such large numbers that they could not even be cremated, you
understand, it was impossible, there were too many of them.
Or otherwise, if one did not die on the third day, at the end of
seven days one was altogether cured; a little exhausted but all
the same completely cured. There was a panic in the town, for
epidemics are very rare in Japan. They are a very clean people,
very careful and with a fine morale. Illnesses are very rare. But
still this came, it came as a catastrophe. There was a terrible fear.
For example, people were seen walking about in the streets with
a mask on the nose, a mask to purify the air they were breathing,
so that it might not be full of the microbes of the illness. It was a
common fear.... Now, it so happened I was living with someone
who never ceased troubling me: “But what is this disease? What
is there behind this disease?” What I was doing, you know, was
simply to cover myself with my force, my protection so as not
to catch it and I did not think of it any more and continued
doing my work. Nothing happened and I was not thinking of
it. But constantly I heard: “What is this? Oh, I would like to
know what is there behind this illness. But could you not tell
me what this illness is, why it is there?” etc. One day I was
called to the other end of the town by a young woman whom
I knew and who wished to introduce me to some friends and
show me certain things. I do not remember now what exactly
was the matter, but anyway I had to cross the whole town in
a tram-car. And I was in the tram and seeing these people with
masks on their noses, and then there was in the atmosphere this
constant fear, and so there came a suggestion to me; I began to
ask myself: “Truly, what is this illness? What is there behind this
illness? What are the forces that are in this illness?” I came to
the house, I passed an hour there and I returned. And I returned
with a terrible fever. I had caught it. It came to you thus, without
preparation, instantaneously. Illnesses, generally illnesses from
germs and microbes take a few days in the system: they come,
there is a little battle inside; you win or you lose, if you lose you
catch the illness, it is not complicated. But there, you just receive
a letter, open the envelope, hop! puff! The next minute you have
the fever. Well, that evening I had a terrible fever. The doctor
was called (it was not I who called him), the doctor was called
and he told me: “I must absolutely give you this medicine.” It
was one of the best medicines for the fever, he had just a little (all
their stocks were exhausted, everyone was taking it); he said: “I
have still a few packets, I shall give you some”—“I beg of you,
do not give it to me, I won’t take it. Keep it for someone who has
faith in it and will take it.” He was quite disgusted: “It was no
use my coming here.” So I said: “Perhaps it was no use!” And I
remained in my bed, with my fever, a violent fever. All the while
I was asking myself: “What is this illness? Why is it there?What
is there behind it?...” At the end of the second day, as I was
lying all alone, I saw clearly a being, with a part of the head cut
off, in a military uniform (or the remains of a military uniform)
approaching me and suddenly flinging himself upon my chest,
with that half a head to suck my force. I took a good look, then
realised that I was about to die. He was drawing all my life out
(for I must tell you that people were dying of pneumonia in three
days). I was completely nailed to the bed, without movement,
in a deep trance. I could no longer stir and he was pulling. I
thought: now it is the end. Then I called on my occult power, I
gave a big fight and I succeeded in turning him back so that he
could not stay there any longer. And I woke up.
But I had seen. And I had learnt, I had understood that
the illness originated from beings who had been thrown out
of their bodies. I had seen this during the First Great War, towards
its end, when people used to live in trenches and were
killed by bombardment. They were in perfect health, altogether
healthy and in a second they were thrown out of their bodies,
not conscious that they were dead. They did not know they
hadn’t a body any more and they tried to find in others the life
they could not find in themselves. That is, they were turned into
so many countless vampires. And they vampirised upon men.
And then over and above that, there was a decomposition of
the vital forces of people who fell ill and died. One lived in a
kind of sticky and thick cloud made up of all that. And so those
who took in this cloud fell ill and usually got cured, but those
who were attacked by a being of that kind invariably died, they
could not resist. I know how much knowledge and force were
necessary for me to resist. It was irresistible. That is, if they were
attacked by a being who was a centre of this whirl of bad forces,
they died. And there must have been many of these, a very great
number. I saw all that and I understood.
When someone came to see me, I asked to be left alone, I
lay quietly in my bed and I passed two or three days absolutely
quiet, in concentration, with my consciousness. Subsequently, a
friend of ours (a Japanese, a very good friend) came and told me:
“Ah! you were ill? So what I thought was true.... Just imagine
for the last two or three days, there hasn’t been a single new
case of illness in the town and most of the people who were ill
have been cured and the number of deaths has become almost
negligible, and now it is all over. The illness is wholly under
control.” Then I narrated what had happened to me and he
went and narrated it to everybody.They even published articles
about it in the papers.
Well, consciousness, to be sure, is more effective than doctors’
pills!... The condition was critical. Just imagine, there were
entire villages where everyone had died. There was a village in
Japan, not very big, but still with more than a hundred people,
and it happened, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, that
one of the villagers was to receive a letter (the postman went
there only if there was a letter; naturally, it was a village far
in the countryside); so he went to the countryside; there was a
snowfall; the whole village was under snow... and there was not
a living person. It was exactly so. It was that kind of epidemic.
And Tokyo was also like that; but Tokyo was a big town and
things did not happen in the same fashion.